NATO under pressure from Trump will symbolically join anti-′Islamic State′ Saudi backed coalition

NATO TO JOIN WITH SAUDI BACKED ISLAMIC COALITION

Several NATO sources on Wednesday said that the strategic military alliance would join the US-Saudi led coalition against the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (IS) armed group.

The decision is expected to be formally announced on Thursday at the meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels, the sources said.

The leak was made public hours after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called on the alliance to do more to combat terrorism, following the suicide bomb attack at Manchester Arena that killed 22 people.

Diplomats said the decision comes under pressure from President Trump and is mainly political and symbolic, because all 28 NATO members already contribute to the coalition fighting to retake areas of Iraq and Syria from the extremist group. Some, like Germany, only taking part in support roles such as reconnaissance and logistics.

For America, the lessons of the European tragedy are there to be learned. There is only one solution to the problem of terrorism and it doesn’t involve going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

The EU must withdraw all its troops from the Middle East – a possibility that doesn’t bear the economic consequences it once did, given the creation of new technologies that make domestic oil production and alternative energy far easier.

For the US the message is that spending billions of dollars defending and sustaining the Saudi monarchy and the Gulf states – some of the most repressive regimes in the world, is throwing money down the drain, and for what?

The interventionists( Republicans and Democrats alike) declare that America’s role as a “global leader” represents the defense of our values. But really, does a regime that beheads “infidels” represent American or European values? Indeed, there is basically no operative difference between the internal rule of the ISIS “caliphate” and the Saudi Kingdom. Yet we are obsessed with destroying the former and cuddling up to the latter.

It’s not too late for the Europeans, who were forced to sleep in a bed they did not make for themselves, to finally step out of that bed, and focus on cleaning-up the ISIS mess at home by themselves, with plans and strategies of their own. 

EU-Digest